Monday, October 30, 2006

Turbanhead reminded me of the school-yard trauma I used to endure, as one of the sole brown kids at my elementary school, in the late 70's-early 80's; being chased around by some gross cheez-whiz eating bully-boy who smelled like mayonnaise and FunFruits, beating his open palm over his mouth, whooping up a war-cry and doing some bastard version of a rain dance. To that kid, and to whomever is responsible for the costuming of "Naach Meri Jaan" from Main Sundar Hoon, I say:

It's not *that* kind of Indian! (idiot!)

I mean it, Columbus got LOST, it's a fact...

Half a century later, can we please stop confusing Indians with Indians??

What? You say the rest of the song clip has Hula dancing and an acid-trippy "Into The Woods" set? Well, it is Monday... consider this your early Halloween present.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Thanks to Vik at Sepia Mutiny, it became all too clear that the time was all too right to get our hands dirty with the canon.

It's so easy.

It's sooo easy.

It's sooooo easy. And these are all from the same song.

A 1980s Bollywood movie about a 70s dance phenomenon. So very rich.

Jimmy's debut. Not so bad, really; a lot of the girlsies on my college campus are wearing belts not unlike this these days. The crease down the front of his pants is intriguing, though. And do not overlook the backup gals in pink, who have on those ice-skater-type tops that are sheer to look like bikini tops.

I haven't actually seen Barbarella but I sense these boots might have been raided from its costume shop.

On to the Krishna song.Black outfit with feather seams lacking a little something?

Spice it up with some streamers!

Or with some ninja-y looking folks, also with streamers of course.

Or try some matching capes and skirts

and oh my stars the black calf-high socks. I think these are what puzzle me most of all.

And they're equally bad on either gender.

Given our project here, this might be jumping the gun, but I'm going to go ahead and award these pastel, be-cape-ed, black-socked monstrosities the Worst Backup Dancer Outfits in Bollywood (Coordinated for Both Genders) (so individual entries for female and male are still up for grabs). What I like about these is how peculiar they are. How did anyone ever think these were a good idea? They don't show up on film particularly well. They're certainly not flattering. They're not à la mode from any era.

I know he's wounded and all, but the poncho is silly. And I actually liked Rita's outfit here until I noticed that the pants were split down the side with some kind of gold thingy holding the bits together. I really hate lace-up-effect clothing. Hate.

And the greatest firangi in Bollywood, Bob Christo! It you must wear tight white pants, Bob, do it like Amitabh and my FPMFIL in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar.

I fast forwarded through this whole movie looking for gems, but you know what? Apart from the songs, the clothes here are pretty darn normal, especially given that it's 1) Bollywood, 2) 1983, and 3) about disco.

I haven't seen this and I don't think I'm going to. According to imdb, this came out in 2005 - 2005 - but surely it was made ages earlier and for whatever reason was released later. Anyhoo. I just popped in Disco Dancer but got sidetracked by the delights in this trailer.

I don't like vests. With straw hats, even worse. Poor Preity. Govinda is maybe wearing snow pants at Niagara Falls in the summer (and despite popular opinion, Canada is not in fact freezing all the time, especially in summer).

Patterns can be mixed, but not like this. And again, poor Preity, they put her in a short-sleeved hoodie, which is mainly just stupid rather than interestingly bad.

Sometimes recoiling in confusion is really the only possible response.

There are plenty more where this came from, but Mithun beckons (and these are too pixely to do the thing justice).

A clever reader over at Sepia Mutiny suggested we do it and since I own the film and have nothing better to do tonight, I would love to post on it (not that there isn't enough to go around). As if there even could be anything better than making fun of Disco Dancer. And Akshaye will help.

Hooray! Ugly, Ugly, Bollywood Fugly has been operational for 1 whole week now. In the past seven days, I've been able to snag/coerce/bamboozle 10 authors to join me in fighting the forces of fugliness. Slowly, we're making the world a more bearable place.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Here we have Rani modelling the slutastic Black Leather Bustier with Hotpants, Suitable Only for Extremely Tall Models, not Adorable Petites.

Here, Rani displays the manifold attractions of an ill-fitting bustier top, or, what I like to call, Ooze.

In this kicky little blue number, the designer has chosen to adorn Rani's bosom with a Bespangled Tube Top with utter disregard to proper support during what is surely one of the most bouncy dance numbers in Bollywood history.

In what is surely an homage to the sarong, our designer has modernized the look by using white & metallic fabrics and adding long strings of beads to the skirt; as most dancers know, this is a particularly charming addition, as the flailing of beads during a dance number is akin to self-flagellation.

Finally, before we lose all hope for Rani's morale, let us remember the lovely fitted salwar suits she was allowed to wear at other times in the film.